Hierarchical Hybrid Memory Management in OS for Tiered Memory Systems

Abstract

The emerging hybrid DRAM-NVM architecture is challenging the existing memory management mechanism at the level of the architecture and operating system. In this paper, we introduce Memos, a memory management framework which can hierarchically schedule memory resources over the entire memory hierarchy including cache, channels, and main memory comprising DRAM and NVM simultaneously. Powered by our newly designed kernel-level monitoring module that samples the memory patterns by combining TLB monitoring with page walks, and page migration engine, Memos can dynamically optimize the data placement in the memory hierarchy in response to the memory access pattern, current resource utilization, and memory medium features. Our experimental results show that Memos can achieve high memory utilization, improving system throughput by around 20.0 percent; reduce the memory energy consumption by up to 82.5 percent; and improve the NVM lifetime by up to 34X.